Soldier
by molotovmullet
Summary: He was just another disappointment – nothing to be proud of, nothing to look up to. Just a good little soldier. - Set during Season 3 around Malleus Maleficarum.


A/N: HELLO. This is a little of a piss-poor attempt at some fanfiction, but I love the boys so much I needed to write something. This is set in Season 3, before Dean goes to hell. Around Malleus Maleficarum. If that's how you spell it. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Couldn't possibly own the brilliance of Supernatural. :P

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><p>Dean didn't know what worried him more: the face that Sam wanted – or thought he needed – to become like Dean after he was gone, or the fact that his younger brother he'd have to be cold and ruthless to pull it off. What did that make <em>him<em>?

Over the years, as the queasiness and the nightmares and the discomfort that came with their job fell into non-existence, Dean had always known that their absence was only an indication that he was ready to step up to the plate. Step up to it and make all the calls, the hard decisions, the sacrifices, take the brunt of the pain – all to protect his little brother.

True, it scared him sometimes, but in the end it would always be worth it. He would do anything – _everything _– for Sam.

It had always been his job, his role, his sole purpose in life – protect Sam, watch out for him. Keep him _safe_. It sounded like a mission. A soldier's mission. In all honesty, that was what it was. 'Dean' _meant_ soldier in Latin, and though he would never understand why his parents would give him such a name without prior knowledge of their future lives, through and through, that's what he was. It was this mission and his role – a soldier – that gave him the courage to lose emotion and simply _do the job_ when he needed to protect Sam.

And he was glad to do it.

But he didn't think Sam understood that – not with the way he was acting, saying he was trying to _become _Dean. What the older Winchester saw now – _cold_ Sam, _ruthless_ Sam trying to act like his older brother – didn't make him proud the way the idea of Sam looking up to him was supposed to. And that worried him – what was Sam becoming? His younger brother had always been better the way he was; kind, tolerant, compassionate. He might not have the same kind of innocence the rest of the ignorant world had come to possess in their obliviousness to what was out there, but Sam _did_ possess a certain kind of innocence in always _believing _in good things, that the monsters and supernatural crap they ganked on a daily basis weren't all necessarily evil – like Lenore, the animal blood-drinking vampire they'd saved from Gordon.

His brother was innocent still, if only because Dean had made the hard decisions, had done the jobs that no-one else wanted to do but needed doing – and he wanted to keep it that way, _protect_ Sam that way. But right now, that was changing.

To become his older brother, Sam's innocence had been replaced with a cold, hard edge, and that annulled all of Dean's past efforts to protect Sam from the harshness Dean himself had been forced to embrace too early on in his life.

He had never wanted that for Sam.

It hurt a little to realize that Sam forcefully changed his person to match up to Dean's, to realize that his brother saw him as something akin to a cold, ruthless killing machine. That had never been what Dean was. It had simply been his job – his job to gank evil mothers out there, his job to protect Sam. His _life_. He had always hoped that Sam knew it was just a necessity – the cold, harsh demeanour. A necessity to keep Sam safe, to get the job done without going insane. Who could possibly manage it otherwise? That was how he'd been taught, and he wasn't about to ignore the lessons his father had given him early on in life.

For Sam to think that Dean's coldness and indifference was Dean's honest character made him realise that his younger brother didn't really know him all that well after all. Sure, Sam knew his pet peeves, the expressions he wore on his face, the coil of his muscles when he was agitated. Sam knew all or most of his tells.

But Sam didn't _understand _him. He'd always thought their relationship was based on understanding. He knew almost everything about Sam, having practically raised his little brother himself, and he was certain he understood Sam on a greater, _deeper _level than anyone else did – even Sam himself. And he thought Sam understood _him_, knew why he acted the way he did when they were on the job. Because, after all, who could live thinking their brother was a cold-hearted killer? Dean's icy cold nature when it came to taking out evil supernatural fuglies was a mask, all in all. An impenetrable wall of false emotion to keep the horrors of the job from catching up to him. To make sure that he didn't lose sleep to the horrors of the dark so that he could always be at the top of his game to protect his little brother. To make sure that he always had his game face on for Sammy. To make sure Sam knew that everything would turn out okay because his big brother was there to protect him.

But Sam didn't understand him. Just like their Dad, Sam didn't understand him. It was likely that somewhere along the way, he might once have, but now he didn't – and that meant that no-one identified with him anymore. His Dad had misunderstood his 'efficiency' for the necessary cold and hard edge a soldier needed and not a way to mask the fear he had – which was what all the bravado really was. Sammy thought the same thing, and that meant that they both thought that Dean was a perfect little soldier. It wasn't wrong to think so, but it _was _wrong to thing that Dean was that way by choice.

All he'd ever wanted to be was an older brother geekboy Sam could look up to, and a son his father could be proud of.

And now he knew no-one saw him as either.

He was just another disappointment – nothing to be proud of, nothing to look up to. Just a good little soldier.


End file.
